THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
three hundred pounds, was carried on
top of the box, as a mere unconsidered
trifle.
At home, of course, rollers would have
been put under the plank and the whole
moved forward easily; but labor-saving
devices have yet to find their way into this
land, where man-power is the cheapest of
commodities. As the team of ten men
strained at the rope, they sang. Their
leader, or cantor, was a long-whiskered
patriarch who would have made a model
precentor for a Presbyterian church
provided he left his dinky little round hat
in Russia. He carried the solo parts of
the chantey, and the chorus came crash
ing in with deep responses, richer by far
than anything heard on the Potomac or
the Mississippi. The performance would
have gladdened a musician's heart, who
straightway would have transcribed its
melody. How the hardest toilers sing,
the world around!
The Russian love of music appears in
many forms. Frequently at ports of call
we would be serenaded for alms by a
crippled soldier and his family or by a
group of maimed comrades. The man
would play the accordeon-the piano of
the peasant-and his companions would
sing, and sing effectively, as apparently
all Russians do.
SING, EVEN THOUGH YOU SUFFER
There is a strain of plaintiveness in
these folk-melodies, even as in their
church services, where the unaccompanied
choirs make music that is famous for
depth and richness. These long nights
on the river, with an accordeon or the
Russian triangular guitar usually within
sound, gave one a fondness for the strains
of this simple music. After all, it is a
fine philosophy that these cripples and
peasants teach: Keep your music port
able; and if you suffer, at least sing. To
rafts and docks and shores and passing
craft, as well as from the fellow-passen
gers crowded on the deck below, I owe
a remembered debt for Volga music.
Occasional landings break the monot
ony of the voyage down the river. Be
tween Nizhni Novgorod and Astrakhan,
the two terminal points of the steamers,
there are several cities of historic and
commercial importance-Kazan,
Sim-
birsk, Samara, Saratov, Tzaritzuin. Pas
sengers have time to go ashore for sight
seeing and for shopping, although the
latter, nowadays, has to do strictly with
the food supply.
From the American's viewpoint, Sara
tov is the best city of the group, although
many an American town of one-fourth its
size is better built and kept. These lower
Volga cities show the predominance of
the Germans, who were settled there by
Catherine the Great and who lately have
been more than a little inconvenienced
by their German sympathies.
This element accounts for the presence
of conventional western church spires in
these cities and towns, for the settlers
have remained Lutherans. Roman Catho
lic churches are more numerous, also, in
this section. Even along the lower Volga
the Greek churches and cathedrals, some
of them very old, since this is not new
country, dominate the landscape. Fre
quently the great church, with its domes
and campanile, will be the one preten
tious structure in a community. The
vogue of the campanile, some examples
of which, like the churches to which they
are attached, are really beautiful, is sure
to be remarked by the Volga traveler.
APPROACHING THE HABITAT OF THE
MINARET
Not until he comes to a few picturesque
Tatar mosques, as the boat nears Astra
khan, does the minaret appear; and even
in the surprising and motley city of As
trakhan the mosques are few and .hum
ble and their minarets resemble the stee
ples of small country churches at home.
One who has traveled much in the Near
East, and is accustomed to the subordina
tion of the church to the mosque, takes
a rather unchristian satisfaction in the
spectacle of an oriental region where the
church buildings dominate the landscape.
That this is the East, one's ears make
clear at every port. The noise is the babel
of human voices; not the rumble of ma
chinery or of motor-cars or of railways,
but the shrill shoutings of the Orient,
which does nothing without clamor.
Quarrels are almost entirely verbal. I
have not seen one stand-up and knock
down fight in all the turbulent experiences
of travel in Russia; the nearest to it was
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